How do I prepare team members who are not comfortable with technology to go virtual?

The first thing to do when the whole team suddenly goes virtual is to agree on the channels of communications. That will lead us to pick the right technology platforms for virtual communication and collaboration.

Talk to your team members to see what each person is comfortable with first. None of these platforms are helpful if only some team members use it. We need the entire team’s buy-in.

Now, let's say you have chosen technologies and some team members are still not comfortable. What youc an do is to spend some 1x1 time with them walking them through the bare minimum of what they need to learn to do in order to be effective. They do not need to learn the full feature set. Reducing the amount they have to learn at once will be a huge help.

Above all, make sure you emphasize the fact that we will be able to persevere. A lot of times, all it takes is a little reassurance and a lot of empathy.

Adapted from a 2020 blog post on going virtual by Elaine Chen.